This disclosure relates generally to the field of data storage management, and in particular, to the creation of a conversion sleeve for connecting a storage drive form factor of one size to an existing disk bay designed for a storage drive form factor of another size.
Replacing a computer system component without shutting down the system and without significant interruption to the system is known in the industry as “hot swapping.” Hot swapping redundant hard drives is a critical feature for high-availability systems. As new technologies evolve, and as system density becomes more critical, smaller features and storage components that are just as robust as previous generations must be developed to protect the customers' data.
Traditionally, hard disk drive (HDD) form factors, such as the 3.5″ drive and the 2.5″ drive, are attached to a drive tray. A drive tray is a removable tray, allowing such drives to be swapped/replaced with ease. New storage drive technology, such as the 1.8″ drive, does not have enough space to attach a drive tray. Alternate drive-removal mechanisms are being developed to allow the smaller form factor technology to be used as hot swappable drives.
The addition of smaller form factor drives has not replaced existing traditional disk drives. The traditional drives tend to cost less than the smaller form factor drives. In addition, though the smaller drives are often solid state drives (SSDs) with high IOPS (input/output operations per second), the magnetic storage disks of the larger form factors have a higher capacity. Many existing systems have arrays of disk bays for the traditional form factors (typically of the 2.5″ type), but not disk bays for newer, smaller form factors. Replacing the existing systems to accommodate smaller form factors is a costly proposition, and developing systems that house separate disk bays for both the traditional and the smaller form factors is antithetical to the creation of high density systems.